I finished the trilogy again yesterday, and I realized that basically anyone can just ignore ME1, and just start from ME2, continue on to ME3 and never really notice what happened back in ME1. What I mean is anyone who do not know about the franchise right now can just start the "trilogy" from ME2 without ever touching the first, and that wouldn't stop that person from "understanding" what's going on, since everything is basically "re-explained" (re-done) from ME2. It's not like watching The Two Towers and expecting to understand it right away, and then moving to The Return of the King and still understand everything, you'd HAVE to watch Fellowship first, and THEN the important dots would be connected to make sense of the LOTR trilogy.

With Mass Effect, the disconnection from ME1's lore (from ME2's first moments and beyond) is so strong that you can effectively never play ME1 at all, literally know nothing of it, and it would not even matter one moment. You'd get at the end of ME3, and ME2 itself (and only ME2) would "make sense", and you might be happy with that. It is ONLY when you actually BEGAN from ME1 that suddenly almost nothing makes sense anymore. It is as if Mass Effect 2 and 3 could have been completely different games, only borrowing Shepard as ME1's protagonist for the heck of it and labeling both games as being "Mass Effect" games just to sell them faster.

I finished the trilogy again yesterday, and I realized that basically anyone can just ignore ME1, and just start from ME2, continue on to ME3 and never really notice what happened back in ME1. What I mean is anyone who do not know about the franchise right now can just start the "trilogy" from ME2 without ever touching the first, and that wouldn't stop that person from "understanding" what's going on, since everything is basically "re-explained" (re-done) from ME2. It's not like watching The Two Towers and expecting to understand it right away, and then moving to The Return of the King and still understand everything, you'd HAVE to watch Fellowship first, and THEN the important dots would be connected to make sense of the LOTR trilogy.

With Mass Effect, the disconnection from ME1's lore (from ME2's first moments and beyond) is so strong that you can effectively never play ME1 at all, literally know nothing of it, and it would not even matter one moment. You'd get at the end of ME3, and ME2 itself (and only ME2) would "make sense", and you might be happy with that. It is ONLY when you actually BEGAN from ME1 that suddenly almost nothing makes sense anymore. It is as if Mass Effect 2 and 3 could have been completely different games, only borrowing Shepard as ME1's protagonist for the heck of it and labeling both games as being "Mass Effect" games just to sell them faster.

It's pissing me off.

yeah I had that feeling when replaying the series I just couldn't exactly figure out what was wrong. You however, explained exactly what I thought.

I finished the trilogy again yesterday, and I realized that basically anyone can just ignore ME1, and just start from ME2, continue on to ME3 and never really notice what happened back in ME1. What I mean is anyone who do not know about the franchise right now can just start the "trilogy" from ME2 without ever touching the first, and that wouldn't stop that person from "understanding" what's going on, since everything is basically "re-explained" (re-done) from ME2. It's not like watching The Two Towers and expecting to understand it right away, and then moving to The Return of the King and still understand everything, you'd HAVE to watch Fellowship first, and THEN the important dots would be connected to make sense of the LOTR trilogy.

With Mass Effect, the disconnection from ME1's lore (from ME2's first moments and beyond) is so strong that you can effectively never play ME1 at all, literally know nothing of it, and it would not even matter one moment. You'd get at the end of ME3, and ME2 itself (and only ME2) would "make sense", and you might be happy with that. It is ONLY when you actually BEGAN from ME1 that suddenly almost nothing makes sense anymore. It is as if Mass Effect 2 and 3 could have been completely different games, only borrowing Shepard as ME1's protagonist for the heck of it and labeling both games as being "Mass Effect" games just to sell them faster.

It's pissing me off.

There's still a lot of context left over from ME1. Virmire being the biggest event. You have to know what went down on Virmire to see the context of Wreav/Wrex's actions and thoughts towards Shepard. There is also Eden Prime and Noveria which add some context to the game.

However, you're right. Besides a few events in ME1, you can jump right into ME2, and ME2 & 3 go in a different direction that can confuse a ME1 veteran.

geth engineer with hunter mode is incredible. if you use the black widow with the penetration mod, you can shoot through almost any wall, floor and ceiling in firebase white. this negates my weak shields, since i just stand behind a wall and shoot my enemies through it.

geth engineer with hunter mode is incredible. if you use the black widow with the penetration mod, you can shoot through almost any wall, floor and ceiling in firebase white. this negates my weak shields, since i just stand behind a wall and shoot my enemies through it.

Spec into the turret, too. Damage-wise it's about as good as the Quarian Turret, but it gives shield boosts/buffs shield recharge to people who are standing near it. It's really great.

I love the Marauder Shields comics. If Bioware did implement another ending that I'd probably want it based off the comics after episode 6.
Also if you missed previous episodes http://koobismo.deviantart.com/gallery/

Playing as the Geth infiltrator. Phantom is the target, 4 other Nemesis and soldiers around her, I run in, spam heavy attack, died in a second after getting the kill and like 2000 points. Totally meant to do that.

I finished the trilogy again yesterday, and I realized that basically anyone can just ignore ME1, and just start from ME2, continue on to ME3 and never really notice what happened back in ME1. What I mean is anyone who do not know about the franchise right now can just start the "trilogy" from ME2 without ever touching the first, and that wouldn't stop that person from "understanding" what's going on, since everything is basically "re-explained" (re-done) from ME2. It's not like watching The Two Towers and expecting to understand it right away, and then moving to The Return of the King and still understand everything, you'd HAVE to watch Fellowship first, and THEN the important dots would be connected to make sense of the LOTR trilogy.

With Mass Effect, the disconnection from ME1's lore (from ME2's first moments and beyond) is so strong that you can effectively never play ME1 at all, literally know nothing of it, and it would not even matter one moment. You'd get at the end of ME3, and ME2 itself (and only ME2) would "make sense", and you might be happy with that. It is ONLY when you actually BEGAN from ME1 that suddenly almost nothing makes sense anymore. It is as if Mass Effect 2 and 3 could have been completely different games, only borrowing Shepard as ME1's protagonist for the heck of it and labeling both games as being "Mass Effect" games just to sell them faster.

It's pissing me off.

I dunno, Mass Effect 1 offers a hell of a lot to the overall narrative. Yeah, the Codex explains a fair amount but it doesn't even come close to what you learn from Vigil on Ilos, or from talking with Sovereign. Mass Effect 1 really is the introduction and exposition piece by which the rest of the trilogy is launched. Could you figure out the trilogy by skipping it? Yeah, probably. Would it be even half as meaningful? Not a chance.

I finished the trilogy again yesterday, and I realized that basically anyone can just ignore ME1, and just start from ME2, continue on to ME3 and never really notice what happened back in ME1. What I mean is anyone who do not know about the franchise right now can just start the "trilogy" from ME2 without ever touching the first, and that wouldn't stop that person from "understanding" what's going on, since everything is basically "re-explained" (re-done) from ME2. It's not like watching The Two Towers and expecting to understand it right away, and then moving to The Return of the King and still understand everything, you'd HAVE to watch Fellowship first, and THEN the important dots would be connected to make sense of the LOTR trilogy.

With Mass Effect, the disconnection from ME1's lore (from ME2's first moments and beyond) is so strong that you can effectively never play ME1 at all, literally know nothing of it, and it would not even matter one moment. You'd get at the end of ME3, and ME2 itself (and only ME2) would "make sense", and you might be happy with that. It is ONLY when you actually BEGAN from ME1 that suddenly almost nothing makes sense anymore. It is as if Mass Effect 2 and 3 could have been completely different games, only borrowing Shepard as ME1's protagonist for the heck of it and labeling both games as being "Mass Effect" games just to sell them faster.

It's pissing me off.

maybe, but in me2 you were mainly fighting a different enemy and had a different outfit to work for.
The thing is bioware did the right thing making you able to understand the game, whilst not as much as someone who has played the one before, without having to play through mex

maybe, but in me2 you were mainly fighting a different enemy and had a different outfit to work for.
The thing is bioware did the right thing making you able to understand the game, whilst not as much as someone who has played the one before, without having to play through mex

Agreed though, and I think I've said this before, Mass Effect 3 would be difficult for new players to understand in any kind of depth. I tried a no-import run for giggles and the only reason ANYTHING makes sense to me is because I'm familiar with the characters and events from ME1 and ME2.

Think of all the stuff that is thrown at you in the span of the first hour. Reapers, Protheans, Mars, Mass Effect fields, all the alien species, familiar characters like Anderson/Liara/Joker/Illusive Man/etc, Biotics, husks, other homeworlds, past events and on and on. And that's all in the first hour.

I can easily imagine new players wondering what the flying fuck is going on. Who's this and why do I know them? What the hell are the Reapers? What are the Protheans and why are they such a big deal?

Why are there Harvesters present during the assault on Earth? In fact why are they even plentiful enough to make them into any kind of viable troop? It's like the Banshees. Ardat Yakshi are said to be extremely rare, yet you kill like a hundred of them, in Shepard's path alone. There just aren't enough in the galaxy for it to be any sort of practical army unit.

From what I'm assuming, Harvesters are like Thresher Maws in the sense that they pop up on several different planets, since there's another planet in ME2 where Harvesters pop up other than Tuchanka.

I should probably just leave if I see I have seven times everyone else's score the first few rounds, we whipe at wave six because nobody but me is actually doing anything, I have no idea how these people even got to level 20 at all.

you know you can do that every time theres an atlas by shooting the window

I know the tips between load screens say you can shatter the window, but I've unloaded every last round on the window before and all that ended up doing was destroying the Atlas itself, not the window. I've even tried the Scorpion heavy pistol, figuring the explosives would shatter it, but in the end it just blows up. Is there some trick to shattering the window but keeping the Atlas intact?